Crazy people with guns kill people.

Talk about putting the cart before the horse. The response of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in the USA to the recent mass killing in Connecticut is to call for teachers to be armed. Wayne LaPierre, the Chief Executive of the 4.3million member lobby group - said that “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

The NRA have always maintained that guns don't kill people, crazy people kill people. But in the USA, crazy people can get guns. Easily. They can show up at an arms fair and buy guns without any checks, due to a loophole in the laws. Also, in the case of Adam Lanza, who carried out the recent massacre, it may be that their parents own the guns they can use.

We have some crazy people in the UK, some harbour homocidal feelings. Yet we have had only three occasions in which a lone gunman roamed around trying to kill as many people as possible - Hungerford in 1987, Dunblane in 1996 and Cumbria in 2010. Why, because it is hard for our crazy people to get hold of guns. After every massacre the British public clamoured for, and got, more gun controls.

And yet in the USA, polls show that with each mass killing the population want LESS gun control, not more. This simply cannot be ignored. It needs to be explained, and then challenged head on.

There are 300 million guns in circulation in the USA, which is almost as many guns as people in that country. This can be linked back to the second amendment of the US constitution, which grants the people of the US the right to bear arms. This is constantly invoked by the NRA, who argue that they are fighting for the peoples' rights.

They ignore of course that the second amendment was created to make sure that the people of the newly formed USA could defend themselves against any attempt by the British to re-invade the country they had just been forced out of.

The NRA also say that their people should be allowed the right to use guns for hunting animals. The trouble is that some people use guns to hunt other people. You do not need semi-automatic guns that shoot 13 bullets a second to hunt animals.  The NRA, who after all represent gun companies who make a lot of money from the sale of these arms - take the line that the way to stop someone with a gun that wants to kill you is to have a gun yourself.

This is why there are democrats and even some liberals who are against gun control. They seem to have given up hope of being able to stop other people owning guns, so they are resigned to the need to own their own guns as a deterrent to other people committing crimes against them.

Isn't this sad? Isn't is obvious that the problem is that people own guns in the first place? Is it any surprise the population of the USA are more likely to kill each other when for many people the sole reason for people to own a gun is because other people own guns?

Worse, there is little proof if any that armed guards in schools will stop these massacres taking place. The Violence Policy Centre, a not-for-profit group which campaigns for a reduction in gun violence, pointed out in response to Wayne LaPierre's speech that Columbine High School, the site of the infamous massacre that left 15 dead in 1999, did in fact have armed guards on site when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire. “[The guards] twice engaged and fired at Eric Harris in an effort to stop the shooting but were unsuccessful because they were outgunned by the assault weapons wielded by the two teens,” Josh Sugarmann, the executive director of the centre said.

The NRA are right in one way. We do need to work very hard on the causes of the killings. There needs to be a proper investment in mental health services - although these would have to be funded by the government - something many members of the NRA would be against. There would have to be a concerted programme to address the feelings of dispossession felt by many young people - although the likelihood that this would have to be state funded would again be something many members of the NRA would be against. Whilst we're at this line of argument - who would pay for the arming and training of school staff? The NRA?

The interesting thing about the Libertarian argument against the type of "government tyranny" that would be represented by any attempt at gun control is that their answer always comes back to the need to arm people in self-defence. This ignores that fact that to commit a crime you need to have an advantage in terms of force. Given most Americans own guns you wouldn't commit a burglary without taking a gun - it's a zero sum game. The irony of all this is that libertarians have little answer to why people commit some of these crimes....a market system that abandons all those who don't succeed in it can cause crime.

So yes, we need to work on the causes of homocidal tendencies. But we also need to work on ways to get guns out of the hands of people with these tendencies.  Looking at two countries gives us a clue on this.

1) Between 1978 and 1996 there were 13 mass killings during the time that Australia didn't have any gun controls. In 1996 they embarked upon a programme of buying back guns from people. Since 1996 there have been no (zero) mass killings.

2) In China since March 2010 there have been over 10 attempted mass killings, yet the death toll from those combined have been less than the death toll from Newtown, Connecticut. Why? Because you can run from knives. Simple as that.

That crazy people may kill people is not the problem, it's that crazy people have guns. Taking the example of Adam Lanza, you would have thought that someone who owned a gun could have stopped him killing them. Adam Lanza's mother owned guns. He killed her with them.

O-levels and the Tyranny of the minority

I doubt his implacable enemies would admit it but Michael Gove does actually want to help children born with disadvantages to succeed. The problem is that he seems to only be creating policy to help children like he was (poor but gifted) whilst forgetting or ignoring those who are not academically bright. The role of those in opposition to his reforms should be to ensure the education system helps all pupils to achieve their aspirations, without throwing the baby out with the bathwater with knee-jerk oppostitionism to all Gove is trying to achieve, much of which is honourable.

The English Baccalaureate, the return of O-levels, the change of A-levels to a linear (exams at the end of the two years instead of every few months) system, the creation of free schools, the appointment of Michael Wilshaw as Ofsted Chief inspector, the focus on improving teaching...all are controversial. But all have an aim, to ensure that should you be academically smart it won't matter whether you were born into a well-connected middle class family or an unconnected poor family, you can have access to the same universities and jobs in the future.

But when I study the detail of these policies I see a vision of a future of a dispossessed majority - because that what they will be, of pupils born into poor families who are not academically bright and for whom the education system has little to offer, or drops them into situations where they are cast adrift of society.

The idea of a return to O-levels is based upon the premise that GCSEs are not challenging enough. Mindful of the maxim that 'the plural of anecdote isn't data' I can confirm that many pupils with A*s for GCSE find A-levels an enormous step up that GCSEs haven't prepared them for.

On a personal note I took GCSEs before A*s existed and you had to get 72% to get an 'A' grade. When I started teaching I found you had to get 63% to get an A grade and 72% would be an A*. I also found that too much of GCSE teaching is spoon feeding and rote-learning and not enough of the analysis and evaluation skills needed at A-level.

Given that A-levels are what gets a pupil into university this is important - because if GCSE level education isn't stretching pupils to be able to handle the jump to A-level then it takes an immense teaching effort to get them there in the two years you have for A-level. Given most state schools' main targets are for GCSE results not A-level results you can see why too many aren't motivated to prioritise A-level teaching. When the Office for Fair Access to universities (OFFA) responds to the obvious result of this (worse results in secondary schools) by suggesting universities make lower offers to state schools I get extremely frustrated. What happened to "levelling-up"?

Anyway - so the original plan was for O-levels to be brought back. Alongside that there was a suggestion that CSEs would be brought back for weaker pupils. At the moment those weaker pupils take a "foundation level" exam at GCSE, the highest mark for which is a C. CSEs allow them to achieve a "top grade" - but employers and universities will see them as second tier qualifications, which is why the Tory government in 1986 abandoned them for the GCSE.

So Gove then says all pupils will take the tougher O-level exam. But that could mean many pupils getting lower grades and finding 14-16 education much tougher. If Gove could come up with a policy that directly addresses the attainment of lower ability pupils as opposed to just those brighter ones he wants to stretch at 'O-level' then it would help. But he hasn't.

Something needs to be done about the diverse directions pupils go after the age of 14. There is a reason Germany has a higher GDP per capita than the UK yet far better income equality. It's their education system. It's not about what happens to brighter pupils either, it's about the less bright pupils. They take exams and assessments at 14 and then are encouraged to take the academic route or a 'technical route'. This means that whilst all learn the core subjects some start learning for a trade and others are learning for university. The better income equality comes from the lower ability students emerging into adulthood with the skills for a profession, rather than what happens in the UK, where they emerge into adulthood having stayed on the academic path competing with those much brighter and having taken qualifications that are unlikely to lead to a job. If Gove addressed this, then great. But he hasn't.

So yes, Michael Gove has identified a problem - key stage 4 (14-16) education. He has identified a solution for pupils like he was. But they are the minority. You don't have to be a foaming-mouthed leftie to identify that this country's education system has put us in a position where those who rule us are from a very small gene pool ('a tyranny of the minority' if you like. If Gove wants to expand that he needs to ensure that he includes as many as possible.

But he isn't.

Bob Diamond - wilfully blind too?

Guess who said this: "Culture is difficult to define...But for me the evidence of culture is how people behave when no-one is watching". If you have followed the news this week (30/6/2012) you may guess it's Bob Diamond - the current CEO of Barclays and, importantly, former CEO of Barclays Capital - the highly successful investment arm of Barclays Bank.

Barclays have this week just come clean over an attempt by employees of Barclays Capital to illegally manipulate LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate), which is the interest rate at which banks lend to each other and that gives an indication of the financial strength they think each other has. Barclays aren't the only bank involved but the motivation for doing this is that the lower LIBOR is the more confidence the market in general has in them - so basically this action hid the weakness of the banks from shareholders and the financial markets and affected the products that you and I (normal customers) owned. It is criminal behaviour.

Many are calling for Bob Diamond's head. He was in charge at the time. His argument is that he had no knowledge about it and (do you recognise this argument from somewhere) it was the actions of some isolated rogue employees and it was more a failure of the control systems within his organisation, for which he apologises. He will appear before the Treasury committee this week to argue that he can't be blamed for it but I have a feeling that won't wash.

I have written here about the 'wilful blindness' (if there is knowledge that you could have had and should have had but chose not to have, you are still responsible) that allowed the Murdochs to encourage but not know about the criminal practices in their organisation and here about the unspoken culture that can be created in an organisation caused simply by senior managers putting pressure on their subordinates to 'deliver'.

When I was working in management consultancy I was told a story by a company that made refrigeration equipment for supermarkets. He alleged that during a negotiation with a supermarket buyer who was trying to force down the price he had warned the buyer that trying to meet their price would require the use of apprentice tradesmen and risk the equipment not being safe. The buyer said without a pause that with the money he was saving on it the supermarket could afford some compensation payments should the equipment collapse. I don't believe that buyer was told by his supermarket superiors to think in such a callous way, but I do believe a culture had been created that encouraged this type of thinking.

So, I predict that when this LIBOR issue is properly investigated we might hear the following story:

Bob Diamond presides over a meeting, sends an email, or has a conversation at the water cooler with his immediate subordinate. During this conversation he digs deep into the performance of that person's department and demands that they improve. This is actually good management, keeping your employees on their toes, and can produce good returns for shareholders.

It is then likely that the senior manager Diamond talks to has cascaded these instructions and this pressure down to their subordinates and through the organisation delivering above expectations is rewarded with bonuses, and underdelivering punished by either no bonus or at worst unemployment.

Now let's travel down to the other end of the organisation chart. You are young, ambitious, and know that untold riches are on offer if you can deliver the best results. So you do what you can to achieve that. At Barclays Capital, the organisation which perpetrated the manipulation of LIBOR, the employees are extremely clever (I've taken the assessment test they all sit and it's extremely hard!). At first, they may achieve this performance using legal means.

And so, up come the results to Diamond and he's able to report to the CEO and Chairman of Barclays (John Varley and Marcus Agius at the time) fantastic results. These are reported to the City. The problem is that if you report, say, a 10% growth in profits, you have to beat that the next year. Diamond would have told his subordinates that, and that would have been cascaded down.

At some point this is impossible to do legally. At some point those junior employees, under pressure to deliver, were having to find clever ways of doing so (hence LIBOR manipulation). Possibly, their managers knew how they were doing it, but as the results were reported up the chain, those it was being reported to were less and less interested in the how and more interested in the what. Eventually it gets to Diamond who has no interest at all in how it is being done. He may possibly have even said that to his subordinates if they tried to tell him.

So, it is possible Bob Diamond had no knowledge of what is going on. But it is also possible that he created and encouraged the culture in which people behaved criminally when  no one was watching and then was wilfully blind to how the results that led to his enormous bonuses were being achieved.

At some point (and given his resources it will probably go this far) a very high court in the land may have to decide whether that means he is as guilty as the 'rogue' employees he blames. What do you think?

The Hounding of Hunt and the Meaning of Impartial

The most interesting aspect for me of the hounding of Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt over his links to News International is the way that the word "impartial" has been misconstrued. Rather than being a "principle of justice that suggests that decisions be based on objective criteria", the new definition of impartial appears to be that you are intent on blocking whatever Rupert Murdoch wants to do. This is dangerously cheapening the debate, and could cost the career of one of the country's most able government ministers.
It reminds me of a former tenant of my wife's old flat who left the flat in a terrible state and made his entire defence to the Tenancy Dispute Service based upon the fact that the independent assessor must have been 'biased' and can't have been 'impartial' based upon his judgement. Since when did 'bias' mean 'not making the judgement you want'?

That's not to say that Jeremy Hunt has done nothing wrong. To walk into the House of Commons as he did and insist he had had no contact with Frederic Michel (Head of Public Affairs for News International) other than official meetings and that he “made absolutely no interventions seeking to influence” the assessment of the bid whilst it was under the purview of Vince Cable (back to him in a minute) was at best badly briefed and at worst a lie. He should be heavily censured for that.

But to suggest that the contents of the memo that he sent to David Cameron on November 19th, even the contents of the original draft of the memo, which were released during the Leveson inquiry, proved he was not  "impartial" is to thoroughly and wilfully misinterpret the meaning of the word. Hunt had, unlike many in the media, taken in information and made a judgement on the bid, and had been doing his job when he did so. In fact, the irony of it all is that he has been accused of not being impartial because in his memo he called for the bid to be judged on "objective criteria". The trouble for most of those opposed to News International's bid to take over BSkyB fully is that the bid, judged on objective criteria, would almost definitely have been approved by the Competition Commission. Which is why objective criteria were the last thing they needed.

The most important point Hunt makes is that "we must be very careful that any attempt to block it is done on genuine plurality grounds and not as a result of lobbying by competitors." Let's look at some of this lobbying shall we? Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC, had been publicly opposed to the bid, despite the BBC's obligations to be impartial. Thompson's company, which has expertly developed into an all-encompassing on and off-line presence, thereby inhibiting the growth of local news networks and many online businesses with their huge monopoly power, would prefer it if BSkyB didn't challenge that dominance. Hence it is no surprise that Thompson was one of the signatories of a letter to Vince Cable in 2010 opposing the bid.

But Thompson's behaviour in opposing the bid (and allowing BBC news to constantly refer to to Murdoch's "empire", with its pejorative Star Wars Death Star like overtones) has been described by media veteran David Elstein as “the most flagrant breach of the BBC’s impartiality obligations in its 90-year history." Why hasn't this been properly investigated? Because Thompson appears to be on the correct side of the new definition of impartiality - in that if you are opposed to Rupert Murdoch then you must be "fair and balanced".

Let's look at the supposed "smoking gun" more closely. In the memo to David Cameron - Jeremy Hunt says this:

“Essentially what James Murdoch wants to do is to repeat what his father did with the [Sun] move to Wapping and create the world’s first multi-platform media operator, available from paper to web to TV to iPhone to iPad. Isn’t this what all media companies have to do ultimately? And if so, we must be very careful that any attempt to block it is done on genuine plurality grounds and not as a result of lobbying by competitors. The UK has the chance to lead the way … but if we block it our media sector will suffer for years … I think it would be totally wrong to cave in to the Mark Thompson/Channel 4/Guardian line that this represents a substantial change of control given that we all know Sky is controlled by News Corp now anyway.”

What those who object to Murdoch's full ownership of BSkyB are really afraid of is the access that he will have to the enormous profits that company makes. I have already explained (click here) how the  reason they make those enormous profits is from the far-sighted leadership of James Murdoch 8 years ago. That's the point, even with 39.1% ownership of Sky, News Corp have controlled it since birth (the fact that 31 year-old Murdoch was appointed should be example enough). So in terms of who controls Sky, News Corp getting 100% of it wouldn't have made a difference.

So let's go back to those profits. The problem with those profits is that it is easy (should you have a vested interest in doing so or an irrational hatred of Murdoch) to mistake those profits for "control" of the news agenda. This is fascinating given we allow the BBC 47% of news viewership and Sky News only have 7%. People argue that Murdoch would force news provision to become more "partial" (we have strict rules in this country about broadcasting that it cannot show political bias) - but how on earth would this acquisition make any difference given it doesn't actually change control of the company? Also, they don't want another 'Fox News' in this country. Of course, the inconvenient fact is that Fox News has been run with barely any Murdoch interference by Roger Ailes for the last 15 years. So we are left with the biggest problem, and the one that would need to be closely guarded by the regulators, which is the effect on newspaper plurality.

The fear is that News Corp would use the profits from Sky to subsidise incredibly low prices on their newspapers, which would cause customers of other newspapers to switch to the Sun or the Times and cause the death of the wide range of newspapers we have in the UK. Firstly, tell a Guardian reader or a Mirror reader they could have the Sun or the Times for free and they would still pay for the Guardian and the Mirror. But secondly, Jeremy Hunt says very clearly in his memo to Cameron that "sensible measures" can be put in place to make sure that any abuses of monopoly power like this cannot take place. We do have laws in this country on predatory pricing.

It is interesting to note by the way that the full draft of Jeremy Hunt's memo to David Cameron cannot be found on the BBC website or the Guardian's website. Perhaps that's because anyone who reads the full memo instead of the reporting of it may find it makes perfect sense and shows the thinking of someone who is thinking about the future of the media in the UK and has reached a judgement that News International having full ownership of Sky might be good for that future. Just because the judgement is against the prevailing wind does not mean it is wrong. The Permament Secretary of the Department of Culture, media and Sport insisted that whatever his personal views Jeremy Hunt had, from the moment the brief was given to him, taken a proper step back from the process to ensure he did in fact take on as much of a quasi-judicial role as he could.

Yet Harriet Harman of the Labour Party to claimed that David Cameron should never have given the job of deciding whether to refer the bid to the competition commission to Hunt because "it is clear that Jeremy Hunt was not the impartial arbiter he was required to be". I believe he was. He just didn't agree with Rupert Murdoch's impacable opponents. Maybe, just maybe, he had an open mind....which on this issue would make a change.

As for Cameron's part in this....he is having fingers pointed at him regarding the appointment of Hunt - saying that he purposely appointed someone who was "pro-Sky". Cameron has rightly been quick to point out that he at first appointed someone who had been actively anti-Sky in Vince Cable, but Cable remember had had to have the decision removed from him because he had said he had completely compromised himself. To remind you of how read here, but in case you don't have time - Cable said:

"I don't know if you have been following what has been happening with the Murdoch press, where I have declared war on Mr Murdoch and I think we are going to win".

Given the EU Competition Commission had just signalled they had no problem with the bid on competition grounds at the time I wonder why it was OK for Cameron to have given the job of deciding whether to refer the BSkyB bid to Cable, but not to Hunt.

It's the naked hypocrisy of all this that really gets me.....

James Murdoch...when the agent was the principal

James Murdoch has given us much to write about this year, but in my view his most important contribution to economics teaching was eight years ago, when one of the most important speeches he ever gave as Chief Executive of BSkyB resulted in shares falling 24% whilst he was giving it despite it being generally regarded as a masterstroke in business strategy.

It is rare that within such a large company the principal-agent problem is temporarily solved and there is so little divorce between ownership and control but the story of Sky under Murdoch's stewardship gave us a chance to see what happens if a company is managed with the long-term in mind, despite the pressures of the short-term demands of the investment community, compared to a period in which the company was managed with short-term objectives in mind, not necessarily in the best long-term interests of the owners.

The divorce between ownership and control occurs because the majority of shareholders in a quoted company (plc) cannot exercise day-to-day control over the decisions of managers. Managers employed by a business may have different motivations than owners and may want to maximise their own "utility" (read: rewards, both monetary and not) from being in charge of a business. This may lead to decisions that are not consistent with profit maximisation or maximising shareholder value over time.

The Principal Agent problem is caused by the principal (the owner/s of a company), needing to hire an agent (managers) to perform tasks on theirbehalf but not being able to ensure that the agent performs them in exactly the way the principal would like. The efforts of the agent are expensive and time-consuming to monitor and the incentives of the agent may differ from those of the principal leading to a conflict of objectives.


¢A good example of this was how Sky had been run before Murdoch took over in 2004. Tony Ball had been Chief Executive and had generally been regarded as excellent. Profits had risen as customer numbers rose. The trouble was that Murdoch quickly spotted that this had been achieved through a series of short-term decisions which had kept costs down at the expense of the future of BSkyB's ability to serve their customers. This was most likely to have happened because Sky's investors demanded short-term profits (and no doubt Ball had a pay package that was linked to that too).

Murdoch's speech promised two things. One was that Sky would have 10 million customers by the end of the decade (2010) and the other was that to achieve this they would need to spend £450million on upgrading their infrastructure, including its call centres and headquarters, in order to meet customer demand with a high enough quality service.

The response to this speech was that shares fell by 24%. Eventually they fell by 50%. The reason was this. Financial analysts and journalists agreed without doubt that what Murdoch was doing was absolutely correct in terms of what Sky needed in the long term. But given that the increase in costs would cause them to take a short-term hit in profits, investors should sell their shares.

Anyone who wants to understand the problems that the financial community have caused themselves in the 8 years since should think back to that day. I thought at the time it was a dark day for the long term future of those businesses interested in investing in the long-term health of their company. To mark down the value of a company like that on such short term views is simply an incentive for companies to pursue strategies that do not make business sense in the long-term.

The fact that in November 2010 Sky reached 10 million customers. The fact that they are regarded as an excellent company to work for. The fact that they are now in a position where the company is so highly cash generative - given the need now only to retain customers (which costs one fifth of what it costs to acquire new ones) is a testament to what happens sometimes when someone is hired to manage a company who has the same objectives as the owners...because he was an owner.

No wonder News International have been so desparate to acquire the whole of BSkyB - although that's another story.......

In Praise of George Galloway

Never has Voltaire's quoted view that "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" been so apt as when I think about George Galloway. Galloway's  success is a great advert for our liberal democracy - and ironically a comment on those regimes which he is alleged to support...someone with his views on the established government in those countries would be dead long ago. Instead, the man has once again turned our election system on its head by winning the recent Bradford West by-election.

To be fair, this win is not as significant as his astonishing victory in the 2005 general election in Bethnal Green and Bow by virtue of the fact that this isn't a general election - so voters aren't thinking about who they want to be prime minister when they vote and the main politcal parties aren't dominating the airwaves. But, winning a constituency is still winning a constituency, and to do so he had to win more votes than all the others (known as a simple plurality) despite not having any sort of party machine behind him.

That said, Imran Hussain, the hapless Labour candidate beaten by a massive voting swing in that constituency, will also have felt that he didn't have any sort of effective party machine behind him. To try and win a by-election in a constituency that has a heavily muslim electorate just by putting a Muslim candidate in front of them, talking about your opposition to the cuts and hoping for the best was imbeclic and underestimated what Galloway was capable of and how well planned his campaign was.

Firstly, he mobilised people who wouldn't normally vote. He used social media to talk to the young in the area and involved them in spreading his word. He used Urdu speakers to talk to those who spoke mainly urdu and hijab wearing Muslim women to talk to Muslim women. All they had to remember was "Galloway number two" (his position on the ballot)

Secondly, he chose an issue that would actually affect voting behaviour. He did talk about the unemployment and the effect of the cuts, but vitally he could use the Afghanistan and Iraq wars to distinguish himself from the Labour candidate - given that they were "Labour" wars. Galloway knew that an issue was only important if the potential voter had an opinion about it (they did), they could distinguish the competing parties' positions on it (they could) and it was something they cared enough about to change their vote (it was). Classic basic A-level politics theory.

Thirdly, Galloway used a "judo" move, in that he took on what was supposed to be his main opponents' strength - that he was a Muslim, and turned it on him. Galloway claimed that "God knows who is a Muslim" and put it about that Hussain had alcohol issues whilst Galloway didn't touch the stuff (should this be found to be a lie then this result might end up being challenged in court but since it hasn't yet I doubt it will be).

Galloway's message didn't just get through to Muslims by the way, he also won in mainly white wards, so it seems that the Bradford West electorate just wanted him to be an MP again. 

So, this week George Galloway took his seat in the House of Commons again. He sits in the back row as far away from the mainstream parties as he can. The people of Bradford West are represented by one of the most colourful, controversial and divisive figures in politics. I say "represented" but given he congratulated the people of 'Blackburn' on the night of his victory and when last an MP only went to 8% of Commons sittings I'm not sure they will actually be 'represented' as you and I might call it - but an MP he is.

Despite his views on just about everything being almost entirely different from mine, George Galloway's victory brought a smile to my face. That's what growing up in a liberal democracy does to you!

Philanthropy debate...what actually is charity?

The debate over the Government's plans to reduce the amount of tax relief someone can get down to £50,000 a year or 25% of income is raging because so-called philanthropists are arguing that it will reduce the amount of charity donations they will give. I have a question - if they will only give to charity if they are given tax relief are they really a philanthropist?

Let's just take a step back and look at what tax is actually for. The idea is that it pays towards those items that society needs to make it work - such as the state education system, the NHS, national defence, policing etc. Without enough money to fund them these areas would suffer and society would suffer. If you like, you are 'donating' money anonymously for the public good. We don't get a plaque in our honour, nor a dinner to celebrate our generosity, or our picture in the paper, we just have to trust that we might be living in a more socially just society.

Should someone earning a large amount of money decide that instead of paying into this vital pool of money through their income tax they should be able to choose where it goes themselves? A definition of philanthropy is "he effort or inclination to increase the well-being of humankind, as by charitable aid or donations". 


In the Independent today, Mark Steel writes a coruscating critique of the current uproar (click here for this)
and puts it beautifully - "rather than funding the NHS through compulsory taxation, we get millionaires to wander round a ward and give a few pounds if they see a patient they think deserves curing."

If you look at it that way - this debate takes on a whole new meaning. The governing coalition - who are trying to deal with a crushing public debt, are trying to find ways to increase tax revenue. So, and this is a cynical example I know - if the Treasury are receiving less revenue because, for instance, a 'philanthropist' has made a massive donation to a top university that his children might not have the academic ability to get into - then the public surely have a right to question whether that should attract tax relief. 

Then think about the fact that 'philanthropists' donate to the arts - claiming that the government are cutting funding. But the government are cutting funding because they have to due to the deficit, which is partly caused by tax revenue falling which is partly caused by many people not paying their far share.

So, how about this ...you can be called a philanthropist if you donate to charity....after you have paid your fair share of tax. If you demand tax relief before you will donate to charity, then society is possibly not receiving a net gain. 

So how about a compromise...how about you get tax relief on £50,000 a year or 25% of your income? Oh, wait a minute...that's the new policy.

Michael Wilshaw, Michael Gove and inadequate teachers - who will win?

I won't lie. I'm delighted that Michael Wilshaw has been appointed Chief Inspector of Ofsted and I'm delighted that Education Secretary Michael Gove is going to have a real go at raising teaching standards, particularly helping schools challenge inadequate teachers, as detailed in this article.

Those who believe in the comprehensive state school system should also be delighted. Because at some point the catch 22 situation needs to be broken.  If you want everyone to feel comfortable sending their children to state schools then there are issues that need to be dealt with in those state schools. Michael Wilshaw has proved he can do it at Mossbourne Academy, and if, through the inspection system he can spread the magic dust he evidently has across the state school system then we will really be onto something.With the help of Gove, he might well do.

That said, there will be some people who will be afraid. Very afraid. Wilshaw has had enough of inadequate teachers. Not just that, he says he has had enough of teachers who are what he calls "coasting along" - doing what they have to do to stay in their jobs but no more - more of those in my next article.

But I want to talk about the inadequate teachers. Nothing has angered and frustrated me more during my teaching careers than teaching alongside plainly inadequate teachers. It is believed that they cost each child they teach a full grade for every year they teach them. The danger is more long term than that though. If you get an inadequate science teacher in Year 9 (in many state schools science teachers teach all three sciences to the same class) a child may lose their love of science. They may choose not to take triple science for GCSE and may drop their idea of going into a medical career. Inadequate teachers can really make that much difference to a child's life.

But it's not just the children. Inadequate teachers make their close colleagues' lives hard too. If you teach A-level there will, on many occasions, be just two of you teaching it. You can either split up the units students are taking or you can try and teach them together, splitting up the content. Whichever way you do it, the students will not learn anything in the lessons with the inadequate teacher. This means you are given a choice. You can teach the content the inadequate teacher can't/won't teach, or you can leave the students to fail.

Think about what that choice means. If you leave the students to fail the units they are taking with the inadequate teacher you are effectively leaving them to..say.. miss out on university, massively lessening their life chances. As a professional are you really able to do that? It's really hard.

So, to teach the content the inadequate teachers can't/won't teach you need to either teach a lot more in the timetabled lessons you have or you need to teach extra lessons after school or in holiday times. You will need to also do extra marking of work and past papers. It's absolutely exchausting, incredibly stressful, and not something that can be kept up for a long time.

So, inadequate teachers can destroy the life chances of their students and the working lives of their colleagues. Yet, as Chris Woodhead, the controversial former Chief Schools Inspector said in 1999, there are about 17,000 inadequate teachers in the UK. Less than 20 have been struck off by the general teaching council. So, why the gap?

Well, it's actually quite complicated. When you try to deal with an inadequate teacher you are, first of all, telling a human being they are at risk of losing their job, their lifeblood, the source of food on their childrens' table. It is an extraordinarily sensitive issue and cannot and should not be rushed. You need to be prepared for accusations of bullying, and possibly discrimination.

Secondly, you are dealing with the teaching unions. Their job is to protect the interests of their members, and they must treat those members equally. Given the power of the teaching unions - in particular the amount of teachers they represent - you need to work WITH them. The teaching unions will appear to support inadequate teachers. In fact this is not true - like any good defence lawyer they make sure that should you be trying to rid your school of an inadequate teacher you go through the proper process.

The proper process involves 'competency' procedures - where you inform the teacher you are concerned about their teaching and you make an effort to support them. Many inadequate teachers may have training needs and they deserve to be trained and given every chance to improve. The onus should be on the school to prove this has happened. Some might well improve. But some have no intention of improving, or some can't. Some will simply not put in the work to improve. They are the ones who are most likely to bleat that they are being 'bullied'. The unions' argument is that as long as the school can prove they followed the correct procedure they will not stand in the way. But too often schools don't do that. Because they are afraid of what it does to 'collegiality' and 'morale'. Not dealing with inadequate teachers is more of a cultural problem than a legal one.

Yet I argue the most damage to 'collegiality' and 'morale' is done to those teachers doing a good job who are either having to carry their inadequate colleagues or watch them fail their students.

What Michael Gove and Michael Wilshaw will hopefully do is make the task of improving/removing inadequate teachers easier - and if that means using legislation then so be it. An example is that a teacher can only be officially observed for three hours a year. Three hours a year! If you ask most Heads of Department about that they will tell you that even the worst teacher in their department can put a show on for three hours in a year. They will then go back to ruining their students life chances and there is little we can do about it.

If I were the teaching unions - I would work with Wilshaw and Gove on this - AND be seen to be doing so. By all means protect teachers against actual bullying and actual unfair treatment - but those union chiefs who understand the big picture should realise that inadequate teachers hurt their own unions' reputation almost as much as they hurt their students.

Because let's just remember who the education system is being run for. The students. Right.......?